


no sentience beyond

by Kaitangata



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: F/F, set like 2-3 years before the trailer, so obvs pre kiss and pre relationship, when ellie is just an awkward bean crushing HARD on her wonderful friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 11:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15364122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaitangata/pseuds/Kaitangata
Summary: Ellie decides to cut her hair. For a good reason.





	no sentience beyond

“Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you could just put it all up in a bun whenever we’re on patrol,” She dropped herself down into the dusty grass with a sigh, running her fingers through her own tangled mane and wincing at the feeling of hair brushing over skinned knuckles, her teeth bared as she let out a soft albeit pained hiss. “Or we can totally braid it the night before and you could just, like, tuck it in your shirt?”

 

A harsh neck crack and a challengingly-raised eyebrow were the only answers she received, and Dina rolled her eyes in exasperation; shoving her friend’s shoulder for her petulance with a light laugh. 

 

In all honesty, when Ellie had skulked up to her after she'd finished helping out in the greenhouse, quiet as a mouse as she mumbled about the long hair “being impractical, too much of a risk, and what if next time it was a stalker or a bloater and not just some chicken shit hunter”, Dina hadn't been surprised. She'd caught sight of Ellie messing with her hair in the days after the incident that it had almost become a stereotypy, and when she wasn't toying incessantly with it, she'd pull it back in a messy bun, or a top knot, or a half pulled ponytail. 

 

Dina had never seen the girl show any damn interest in her hair in the years that she'd known her, so frankly, it was obvious as hell that something was up.

 

No, the only thing that had surprised her, was watching Ellie walk around the compound with her hair down. Voluntarily.

 

“Fine dickhead, have it your way. Don’t expect something stylish, the closest thing to hair-dressing I’ve done is grooming horse hair, and I don’t think Tommy was too happy with the way I worked on their manes, to be honest.” She picked at her fingernails, expression almost complacent. “Haven’t been scheduled for stable duty since. I just thought the mares would like a new style, you know?”

 

“Also,” Dina started, brushing her dirty jeans off with equally grimy hands, shuffling to sit in front of Ellie. She swiftly cutting off any sneering remark or awkward query with a light finger pressed to chapped lips. A sly smirk twisting her own lips into a half smile, narrowly avoiding tugging on the scabbed split through the lower. “Seeing as this is probably the third time I’ve ever seen you with your hair out in like, three years, you’re gonna have to sit and deal with me committing this image to memory if you want me to cut it all off for you.”

 

“That’s fine,” Ellie half mumbled around Dina’s warm finger, moving to stand. “I’ll jus’ go find someone else to do it for me then.”

 

“You really gonna trust Joel with your hair? With the way his beard is looking at the moment? I mean hey, I'm not great, but really?” Dina called up to her friend as she stood, letting slip another chuckle as the girl dropped her chin to her chest with a vexed groan. “Didn’t think so. Sit your ass back down babe, and suck it up.”

 

Ellie couldn’t help but gulp at the devilish simper Dina’s sly smirk had transformed into, glinting teeth and all. 

 

Plopping her butt back down in the dried turf, after rolling her eyes so damn hard that she thought they’d roll right out of her head, Ellie conceded to Dina’s antics. 

 

She managed to suppress the shudder that racked its way down her hunched spine at the feeling of deft fingers brushing through her hair, clipped nails - whether incidentally or not, she was unsure - scraping tantalizingly against her scalp every now and again. 

 

“Ow, fuck!” Well, that was a little less tantalizing.

 

“Shit, sorry!” Gentle fingers withdrew from sensitive skin, palms coming to rest upon her shoulders. “Does your whole scalp still hurt or is it just particular places?”

 

“Just kinda around the back, top of my neck. I know you're a hair puller and all, but at least give me like, a few days to heal before you start yankin’ on it please.” Ellie teased, laughing at her… Her friend's widening eyes.

 

She earned a pretty solid thigh slap for that one, as well as a slew of non-english expletives and a jeering threat of leaving this haircut bald if she didn't watch herself as Dina’s warm fingers resumed their exploration of her long locks. 

 

Mindful of the back of her scalp, this time.

 

Eyes swiftly averted to her scuffed boots, picking at the rust-stained steel as she awkwardly shucked her weathered flannel, haphazardly folding it after plucking her switchblade from the breast pocket. She sat in her grubby, worn-out tank top, stiff-shouldered, with her craggy scar absently hidden against her abdomen as she struggled to ignore Dina’s gentle caress after a while, as well as trying to shoo away the feeling of butterflies fluttering in her gut. Her splinted fingers drummed almost nervously against her shin as she chewed on her windburnt lower lip.

 

Able to repress the previous shiver, she found herself unable to force away the blush that spread over her cheeks, burning the tips of her ears.

 

Of course, Dina had always been a real touchy-feely kind of person but this…

 

This was downright torture. Unfair torture. Really unfair torture.

 

...Not to say she didn’t enjoy it, however…

 

With a weary huff, Ellie ghosts a fingertip over the narrow wound over her neck, the sutures prickling against the calloused skin. 

 

It was only a small injury, perhaps a little shorter than the length of her pinkie finger. Minor in comparison to the healed divots left by animalistic teeth that scarred her pale forearm, or bullets and arrows and bottles and blades that had bitten hungrily into her flesh and marred her skin with dangerous reminders. Still, the knife had sliced deep. Deep enough that she’d been surprised, pleasantly of course, there hadn’t been more damage. 

 

Ellie swore she could still feel the blade against her skin, the rain pounding hard against their bodies, chilled wind biting at their exposed skin as Dina’s volatile hiss-cursing broke through the static of the cold air. 

 

She’d paused, only for a second or two, unable to help but appreciate how well Dina was handling the axe she’d scavenged from one of their ambushers, real impressed by how swiftly she’d manage to steal the weapon. Right from the hands of a hunter. Mid-strike. Ellie had feigned a charge and tripped up her own attacker in his attempt to kick her away, catching sight of Dina throat-punching her own opponent and stunning another, sinking her pig sticker between his ribs, snatching the weathered axe from his shocked grasp; and with a dancer’s grace, struck the bit down into the man’s skull.

 

It’d been  _ damn impressive _ .

 

It seems that brief lull in concentration was all that was needed. Blindsided by a heavy handed elbow strike to the jaw, the force bringing the girl to her knees in her dazed confusion, pistol kicked from her reach.

 

“C’mere you!”

 

A hand twisted roughly into her hair, the assailant wrapping her dripping ponytail tightly around his knuckles, yanking her head back so violently that Ellie swore then and there that her neck had been broken.

 

“Ya’ know, you floozies are causin’ us a whole lotta trouble. ‘Nd ya’ll ain’t makin’ it easy f’us to bother keepin’ ya alive.” The words were low, roughly growled into her ear.

 

Her attacker grunted out a curse when Ellie managed to weakly kick him in the shin, attempting to graze the heel of her boot down the bone. A scratchy chuckle, and he jerked her back by the hair again, pulling her off balance and holding her off centre. 

 

“Thought you’d be a whole lotta good fun back at camp, but neither o’ ya seem worth the hassle.” His gruff voice hissed into her ear, his grip tightening and pulling so much, ripping at the roots at the base of her skull, that she half expected to end up half scalped through her struggling.

 

“Tell tha’ other bitch ‘ver there to stop killin’ my boys ‘nd we might let y’all both live.”  The putrid stench of halitosis burned her nostrils, and a blunt blade met resistance against her throat; skin burning as the tip bit through, agonisingly parting flesh and muscle in its quest to saw through her larynx from ear to ear. 

 

Ellie bucked and twisted, writhing like a feral animal in her assailant’s grasp, snarling and clawing and biting at the filthy wrist that clung - his hand, white knuckled - to the blade haltingly piercing her neck. She briefly noted the shouting of her name and curses that seemed so close, and yet so distant at the same time as she, rather futilely, reached up to try and claw at the face of her vicious assaulter, throwing her head back to try and headbutt him to no avail.

 

‘This is it, this is the end. I’m gonna die here…’

 

“I’ll let y’all both live if ya both start beggin’...” The words were a taunt, growled with a malicious chortle, his mouth so close to her ear that she could feel the scraggly hair of his beard scrape against her neck.

 

A chill ran it’s frigid finger down her spine, her blood turning to ice in her veins.

 

_ “You could try beggin’...” _

 

A flash of lightning and the low rumbling growl of thunder awoke Ellie from her silent stupor; her elbow aching and fingers throbbing, blood drooling lazily from raw knuckles to mingle with the mud beneath her ragged boots. Her left hand was... Numb for a lack of better words. Aching but… Not? She couldn’t feel her fingers, couldn’t move them, and yet somehow they sent a throbbing burn all the way up her arm, down the curvature of her spine.

 

She felt warm hands against her flesh, pressed firmly to the wound that gushed a steady stream of red. Too soft and too wary and too gentle to belong to a hunter, or a raider. Or some other sick, twisted pervert.

 

“Ellie…”

 

Moss eyes lingered over her boots, the time-worn leather and exposed steel drowned in gore, flecked with discoloured slivers of yellowed viscera. A bloodied rock lay discarded by the metal toe cap. Her eyes flitted further still. Crimson stained teeth and shards of bone mosaiced through puddles of mud and blackened sludge.

 

“Ellie.”

 

It was almost hard to call what sat, slumped against a rotting tree, a foot or two from her a person. A corpse, ravaged so viciously by blinded fury - disturbingly so - that it looked to be nothing more than a discarded pile of meat, butchered by some ravenous, starved carnivore. 

 

She brushed off her companion’s shaky grasp, bowing down to retrieve her firearm, cold metal pressed comfortingly against the small of her back when returned to her waistband and her switchblade was slipped from its hidden place within her boot, tucked into the pocket of her soaked flannel. Less secure, but easier to access.

 

Lesson learned. Overkill, but learned.

 

Curling a shaky hand over her bleeding neck, she knelt down by the cooling body of her attempted killer, rifling through his pockets and looting anything of use with less care than she would bestow upon an old cupboard or a discarded cardboard box. Eyes lingered over his face - or what had once been a face. Cranium nothing but a sunken mess of red muck and grey matter, mandible crushed into slimy mush of minced flesh and bone shards. 

 

Her lips twisted into a disgusted sneer.

 

“Food for the crows…” Ellie briefly heard herself snarl out, hocking a wad of bloody spittle by the man’s ravaged torso, burying his pathetic, old, ragged blade in his throat. 

 

She liked the symbolism.

 

There was a brief, intruding thought that flashed through her mind, a dark desire to reach into his concaved chest with her bare hands, and tear out the last of his innards. Unfurl his intestines, and spill his entrails into the mud, no different to the offal of the animals she had hunted when…

 

She shook her head rapidly and stumbled back into the mud with a ragged gasp. A physical attempt to flush away a mental manifestation of depravity, and as quickly as it had appeared, the thought was gone, leaving the bloody and wounded girl with bile burning at the back of her throat. Saliva thick as she tried to swallow down the feeling of queasiness washing over her body as swiftly as the pouring rain, she reached aside and clasped trembling fingers snaked up to grasp feebly to the hand resting upon her shoulder.

 

“Ellie!”

 

Her head shot up, eyes snapping open, swiftly meeting Dina’s worried gaze through a veil of auburn, stomach churning and bile burning at the bottom of her esophagus at the recalled memory. Clammy hands clenched tight - at least as best as she could, and she drew in a shaky breath to try and slow her galloping heart.

 

“D-Did I…?”

 

“Yeah… Yeah you did. Not the longest, but you checked out on me completely. Been shaking your shoulder for like, two minutes.”

 

“Sorry…”

 

“Hey…” Dina murmured softly, gauging the paler girl’s response when she cautiously reached down and took her hands, mindful of both her bruised, scabbed knuckles and broken fingers. “El, it’s okay. It's just me here. And you don't need to apologise for a typical symptom of-"

 

“Wanna hear a joke?” Ellie cut her off swiftly, unwilling to have some deep emotional conversation at the current moment in time. 

 

Or any moment of time ever, really…

 

“Ellie…” 

 

“Please Dina. I just… I don't think I can talk about that right now…” She mumbled weakly, head bowed and gaze averted to their entwined fingers.

 

Dina looked apprehensive, lips pulled into a tight, solemn line, but after gently lifting Ellie's chin to look her in the eye, she nodded her affirmative. “Okay, El. When you're ready.”

 

“Thank you… Okay. So.” She cleared her throat, sucking in another trembling breath, releasing the air in a slow sigh. “How do you spot a blind man on a nudist beach?”

 

She already looked displeased, and Ellie couldn't smother the miniscule grin that twisted up her lips, slowly cracking her closed off facade.

 

“Well, it's not hard, really…”

 

Dina let her head back fall back, letting out a rumbling, and incredibly exasperated groan; face covered completely with both hands. Ellie, frankly, found her reaction to the joke to be far more entertaining than the joke itself.

 

“You found another one of those fucking pun books, didn't you?” She grumbled, pressing her fingertips against her closed eyes, though unable to stifle her own small, dopey smile, even when half hidden behind scarred, cracked palms.

 

“I cannot confirm or deny whether or not I found a copy of No Pun Intended: Early Third Gets the Worm.” Ellie replied, letting out a breathy chuckle at her own stupid joke, the weight of earlier events slowly sloughed from her shoulders like snake skin.

 

“I’m breaking into your house and stealing all your reading material. Joke books, comics, novels. All of it. No more reading. I can’t handle your shitty puns anymore.” Dina let out another groan, index fingers massaging her temples; though she still couldn't hide her smile. “I’ll take the risk of Joel shooting me, or stabbing me, or strangling me, if it’s gonna mean you run out of fucking puns.”

 

“It’s bold of you to assume that, in my boredom, I haven’t just memorised all puns and jokes in the first two volumes. Two weeks and I’m sure I’ll do the same for this book too.” Ellie let out another laugh, scratching lightly at the back of her neck.

 

“Why do you gotta hate on my amazing comedy for? Don’t be such a Debbie Downer… Wait…” Ellie’s eyes widened before she barked out a laugh.

 

“Dina Downer!”

 

The girl in question narrowed her eyes dangerously, lips pursed. “Watch yourself, Williams. I can jimmy your window from the outside, remember? Don’t think I won’t smother you in your sleep.”  

 

“You’re evil…”

 

“Thanks babe, I know.” Dina winked with a beaming smile, giving Ellie’s scarred forearm a gentle squeeze before she shuffled, moving to sit behind her. Running her fingers through the silky hair one last time, Dina secured it in a low, loose ponytail with a worn out hair tie. “Alright Mulan, give me your knife. And like, don’t move. You’re cute, but you’re not mullet cute and that’s what you’re gonna end up with if you don’t sit still.”

 

She was glad that Dina, from where she had seated herself, couldn’t see her beaming smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading video gays, gals and all in between. This was an idea I'd had since I'd watched the trailer, and eventually I decided to write rather than just sit and stew. Hope this was an alright way to kill a few moments. MASSIVE shout out to the wonderful Paradospariah on tumblr for her masterful beta-ing skills, she turned this stinky turd into a less stinky turd. I'm Dickspagetti on tumblr, come yell at me, or join me in screaming into the void. Or send me prompts, that works too.


End file.
